‘The Rap Yearbook’ Is Coming To TV, Courtesy Of AMC And The Roots

AMC and The Roots are partnering up to turn writer Shea Serrano’s The Rap Yearbook into a TV show. AMC will be producing a year-round documentary series “AMC Visionaries,” pairing up with artists of various genres to tell their stories and histories, straight from the artists’ mouths.

Their newest endeavor finds band frontmen Ahmir “Questlove” Thompson and Tariq “Black Thought” Trotter executive-producing “AMC Visionaries: Rap Yearbook” along with Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney and Stacey Offman. The six-part series is slated to premiere on AMC in 2018.

The show will take its inspiration from Shea Serrano’s New York Times best-selling book The Rap Yearbook, and much like the book itself, will debate, deconstruct and illuminate the most important moments and songs from the biggest years in the history of hip-hop. Each episode will be centered on the story of one key song — like the chapters of the book — and will feature a special guest MC. Fans of Shea, The Roots, or rap music in general won’t want to miss it — the book was not only informative, but fun, and both will be sure inspire both old school rap heads and newcomers to hip-hop alike.

Nice. That book was a great read. The format should translate well, as it contextualized why each song was so important, then let others give brief responses with why their song pick was more important.